


Storm Shadows

by unpossible



Series: Storm Shadows [1]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-26
Packaged: 2019-06-16 02:25:06
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 7,268
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15426990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unpossible/pseuds/unpossible
Summary: She’d been young and stupid. Young, stupid and truly alone for the first time.Four months since she’d been abandoned by Saw Gerrera. Jyn had been hungry for contact but terrified by the idea of it, the risk.  The stranger had seemed a fairly safe person to think about, in an abstract it’ll-never-happen sort of way.Then came the storm, and an offer of shelter.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone! Long time between fics. This one has been sitting cooking on my laptop for a while. I hope you enjoy!

 

 

She’d been young and stupid. Young, stupid and truly alone for the first time.

Four months since she’d been abandoned by Saw Gerrera. Jyn had been hungry for contact but terrified by the idea of it, the risk.

The stranger had seemed a fairly safe person to think about, in an abstract _it’ll-never-_ happen sort of way. He’d been quiet, reserved, but nothing about him made Jyn instinctively wary in that instinctive way she’d developed growing up amongst the Partisans. She’d seen him playing sabbac outside one of the cantinas with the old men, gently teasing and being teased in return. He’d been gone for a few days, then showed up back at the tables as though he’d never left. Today was the first time she’d seen him anywhere else, but somehow he blended in at the markets as though he’d been born on Wecacoe. He hadn’t, though. She knew an interloper when she saw one, and no matter how smooth his speech was as he complimented a local fabric seller, she could tell he was hiding an accent.

Jyn ordered a domit pie and handed over some hard-earned credits. She wasn’t about to starve, but it would take a long time – or a high-risk theft – before she would have a buffer of credits to protect against the lean times. For now, though, she was doing okay skimming the occasional pouch of valuables from inattentive traders and doing some low-profile forging for locals in need of papers.

She cast another glance across the markets toward the stranger, annoyed to find herself doing it out of some kind of compulsion rather than on purpose. He looked… tired. Wary. But there was gentleness in his hands as he accepted something wrapped in leaves from a local woman, as he raised it to his face to breathe in the scent. He smiled, dimples creasing his cheeks, and said something that had the woman giggling.

Jyn felt her mouth wanting to smile as well, but just as her face relaxed his eyes cut to hers, no warning, just an instant sense of being trapped in a bright searchlight, as though he could see straight through her.

They stared at one another for a long moment, then someone moved between them and Jyn blinked, turned on her heel and began walking, pie still cradled safely in her hands. She raised it to her mouth and bit down, careful but hungry. She cut across the market on the diagonal, watchful as always for potential marks.

As she ate, she tried to figure out what her next move was going to be. This planet was fine, for now. It was far enough from trade routes to be relatively safe, no Imperial installations, and as far as she knew, nothing valuable enough to make it an attractive target for either side to start showing interest. But she couldn’t stay here long-term. Not with the mud-rain.

As if she’d conjured it up from nowhere, the warning siren began to sound. “Ugh,” Jyn muttered, and finished her pie in two quick bites. She dusted pastry flakes off her fingers and turned, as all around her the market stirred into swift, practiced movements. Shutters rolled down over windows of the larger buildings, the market’s stallholders began collapsing their tents and tables without another word, one or two of the more daring finishing the transaction with a quick nod or shake of the head before they began to pack up.

Jyn wove through them, picking up speed as she went. She was as far from her dingy room as it was possible to be without leaving town, and while the locals might be in the habit of accepting any offer of shelter to ride out the storm, there was no way Jyn would ever do the same. Saw had taught her better than that.

The natives of Wecacoe even had a word for it – a _storm shadow_ was the affectionate nickname for the stranger who took you in when you were caught out without shelter. There was even a specific set of laws to punish those who refused shelter or otherwise harmed someone requiring protection from a mudstorm.

The siren was rising in intensity now, warning that the rain was imminent, and Jyn gave her head a fierce, angry shake, then drew her heavy scarf further forward over her face, goggles down. She was barely going to make it out of the market, kriff it. She glanced sideways and halted abruptly. Two familiar faces were threading through the market, coming toward her, and she felt every inch of her skin tighten in fear.

She didn’t really know what they wanted. Other than _her_.

They were locals, one worked at the droid repair station, the other, well, she wasn’t sure what he did. Something that required manual labour, considering the size of his shoulders and arms. But they were always together, and they watched her, constantly. Muttered to one another. Part of her brain wondered if they were informants, the other half felt a very specific creep of horror that told her their attention wasn’t because she was Jyn Erso, it was because she was young, attractive, and very, very alone.

Jyn took a step back. Wherever those two were going to spend the storm, she was very definitely _not_ going to be there. She turned, then, and dropped into a half run, threading between marketholders now wrapping their goods in canvas or plas blankets, one wary eye on the sky.

There was a large area where the public were welcome to shelter, all the marketholders and their customers filing inside as they finished packing, but that meant her two shadows would also be welcome, and Jyn would go in there around the same time she enlisted with the Empire.

She reached the edge of the market and slipped down a narrow lane. There had to be some kind of alcove with a roof where she could crouch for however long it took for the storm to pass. Her heart was pounding now. She had seen the result of that hot mud hitting unprotected skin, and she couldn’t afford the time or credits an injury would cost her, not when she had barely put the Corellian flu behind her.

She turned another corner but caught the distinct sound of footsteps behind her. _Shit_. Surely those two weren’t going to risk being out in the storm just to get her alone? She’d been worried about the public shelter, but she hadn’t considered that they might be so tired of waiting for a chance that they’d risk _not_ going to the shelter at all.

Jyn set her jaw and reached for the baton at her belt.

She found a spot that would offer her some cover, slid into the doorway and shook out the full length with a practiced snap. She’d have to break a bone with her first strike. That was her only chance to make this a fair fight. If she injured one of them enough, she’d have time to take on the other.

One huge splat of hot mud, straight from one of Wecacoe’s volcanoes hit the street, still smoking. She stared at it grimly, the scent of sulphur filling her nostrils.

Their footsteps had slowed, now. She could picture them glancing from side to side in the street, searching. Jyn took a steadying breath.

“Hey,” she heard, very softly, from above. Jyn looked up.

It was him. The handsome stranger from the sabbac tables.

He must be staying in one of the rooms above the cantina, she realized. From his window, he would have a pretty good view of the street. He looked past her, back the way she had come, and his face hardened.

“You can come up,” he said, still softly. “If you want.” And sure enough, there was a short ladder set near the roof of the building, probably to allow someone to climb out in case of fire. She’d just have to jump to reach the bottom, from there it would be an easy climb.

Jyn swallowed, heart still racing. The footsteps were getting closer.

She stared up at him. His face was hard, eyes shadowed, as though he’d seen things, done things he regretted. Who _hadn’t_ , Jyn thought with a twist of her mouth. But he didn’t make her skin crawl like those other two. Maybe he’d turn out to be some other kind of creep – take her credits, try to charm her into bed or recruit her to the Empire or worse still, the Rebellion, but between the choices she currently had… she’d choose him.

More splats of mud hit the street, the roof, then the ladder in front of her. The sound was turning into a steady thud thud thud, and Jyn shoved her truncheon into her belt and leaped for the ladder.

The mud coating the bottom rungs burned her palms as she gripped, but she gritted her teeth and climbed.

From behind her came a startled shout, running feet, and Jyn snarled silently and dragged herself higher. She felt someone grab at her heel just as a hand appeared in front of her face and she gripped it, felt the stranger’s wiry strength as his other hand gripped her forearm and _hauled_.

Jyn kicked out viciously as she rose and felt a satisfying crunch of bone, a pained yelp before she was being dragged over the window sill, hip bones catching painfully on the edges. Another splat of mud hit her calf and she gasped at the burn, and then she was inside, landing in a muddy, sprawling heap on top of the handsome stranger.

He wriggled out from beneath her and flung himself at the window. She heard the sound of it closing, then a shutter, muting the unwelcome sound of the mud rain, and then they were just two people in a small, darkened room, breathing heavily

 

 

She could feel his eyes run over her as she pushed to her hands and knees. She shook out her hands, wincing a little, and then he stepped closer. “You should take those off,” he said, gesturing to her mud-soaked pants and she froze.

Jyn had heard muttered variations of that particular remark since she had first started to sprout breasts. And a lot more of it since Saw left her to fend for herself. For one second she thought, _he was probably in on it with them_ – stars, she was so _stupid,_ even animals use tactics like that, stampedes that herd an animal toward a waiting ambush-

She raised her head to look at him, and he seemed to hear himself. His eyes widened and he took a step back, raising his hands. The transformation was so sudden and so comically real that Jyn found herself wanting to laugh. “No,” he said, “hey, no. I’m not- the mud, I meant the-”

Jyn couldn’t help herself. She snickered.

“Okay,” she said. “I believe you.” And he had a point. The mud was hot, and that was unpleasant, but it was also slightly acidic, and she was getting more than a contact burn from it. She rolled to her butt and started in on her belt, fingers swift. Her face grew hot even as she worked practically, because in a minute this stranger was going to see more of her than-

A blanket from the bed dropped to the floor next to her.

It was a kindness, and Jyn hadn’t seen a lot of that in her life. She swallowed, head still down, and tried to calm herself. She was acting like a giddy girl – laughing and getting shy. Just because he was handsome – just because she had kept helplessly glancing his way in the market. And then for a moment she felt a surge of rage at everyone in her life who had taught her to always, always be on her guard.

She started unlacing her boots with short, sharp jerks. Why _shouldn’t_ she act like any other girl? Just this once? Why shouldn’t she get a few hours reprieve, a few hours where she knows what it’s like to laugh with a man she isn’t afraid of, to touch someone because she wants to?

There was a moment’s pause and then just as she reached to shove her pants down he said, softly, “I promise you I mean you no harm. You’ve no reason to believe me, but I’m not going to try and touch you.”

Jyn still didn’t look up. She bit her lip, shoved her pants down off her legs and kicked free of them. She didn’t reach for the blankets.

“May I see?” he asked, still standing on the other side of the room.

She nodded, face hot from the thoughts she’d been having. He’d been so circumspect, but _she_ wanted to touch _him_.

He crouched by her leg, turned it carefully. Her clothes had partially protected her, she had an angry patch of skin across the bulk of one calf, and a spatter in the soft skin behind her left knee, but it was nothing serious. Her hands were worse, actually, but he probably hadn’t seen that happen.

“There’s a small ‘fresher just in the corner there,” he said with a nod. “If you want to wash off I can put some salve on the skin. Benpo cream. You’ll be good as new by morning.”

“Thank you,” Jyn said softly. Just his hands on her calf had her skin hot and prickling. _Stars_ , he had to have gentle hands as well as a kind face? She didn’t know she had a weakness for that. Hadn’t ever had the chance to find out, to be honest.

“Storm shadows, that’s what the locals say, isn’t it?” he said, his voice kind of blank.

She managed a faint smile and rolled to her feet. She left the blanket. Just him offering it made her feel less naked, and there was a kind of hum under her skin that made her want to be a little reckless. He had carefully directed his eyes to the floor, she saw, and it made her feel hot and shaky all at once.

Jyn paused at the door to the fresher. “What if I did?” she said, her mouth running without permission.

He glanced up, brows lifting in question.

“What if I did try to touch _you?”_ she clarified.

His eyes widened, and then in the dim light she saw the swift dawning of suspicion, paranoia. His eyes darted to the window and she realized he was wondering if she was in league with the two locals-

Jyn smothered a laugh. What a matched pair they were. “No,” she said. “I didn’t plan this. I was just asking.”

And she ducked into the fresher, blushing but somehow proud of herself, knowing he was standing in the middle of the room, mouth open, thinking about her.

 

 

 

When she emerged from the fresher the stranger was moving carefully around the room, straightening up, she thought. He had a bag, almost completely packed, and she suspected that the other things she could see lying around the room – a chrono, a pair of dice, a jacket thrown over the back of a chair – were all things he could walk away from without a backward glance.

 _He’s like me,_ she thought, with a pang. A fugitive of some kind. A criminal, perhaps, or a smuggler. He lives day to day, and trusts no-one.

“I’m Nari,” she told him, and he turned his head but stayed facing away.

“Will,” he said, after a moment.

She knew it wasn’t his real name, just as he knew Nari wasn’t hers. Didn’t matter. Their names weren’t the important thing here.

She walked forward, wearing only her underwear and her overshirt. It had been nice to wash up a little, nicer still to shed the goggles and scarf. She placed her discarded clothing on the chair that held his jacket, and waited. There was a warmth, low in her belly she’d only felt a few times before. In this room, cut off from the world, she wondered if he could fan it into a flame.

There was a stillness in the room, now. Jyn had put it there with her bold question.

_What if I did try to touch you?_

His shoulders lifted on a long breath, and he turned. His eyes ran over her body, and he licked his lips, involuntary, at seeing the expanse of leg on display, her face and neck no longer hidden.

He held up his hand and she saw in it a tube of salve. Right. He’d promised to tend to her leg. She nodded once and hesitated, then moved to the bed. It was that or remain standing and have him kneel. Both options made her cheeks flare hot.

“Wait,” he said, and closed his fingers around her wrist.

Jyn stopped and tilted her head up to meet his eyes.

“Your hands first,” he said, and nodded to her blistered palms.

She blinked. _He noticed more than I realized._ She licked her lips and offered her hands, palm up.

He took a slow breath and uncapped the benpo cream, squeezed it onto her skin and gently spread it, trying not to touch more than he had to. Trying not to hurt her. Jyn closed her eyes. She felt weak, shaky. Like her skin was too tight.

He blew a long steady breath over the salve, cooling, and she gasped a little. His free hand, still wrapped around her wrist, tightened for a half second before loosening.

“The leg,” he said, and his voice was thready.

Jyn moved to the bed, lay down full length on it and closed her eyes, rolling on to her side. It sounded like all the breath left his body in a rush. Then his fingers and the cool salve were there, gentle and steady and for a moment she could cry at the comfort of it.

“Nari,” he said, voice very low. “What did you mean?”

She didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I like your hands,” she said. “The way they touch me.”

For a moment there was nothing, no response, then his fingers came to rest lightly at the back of her other knee.   could feel her nipples tighten, warmth between her legs.

“You were looking at me,” he said. “In the market.”

She bit her lip. “I didn’t mean to.” Then shrugged. “You’re handsome.”

A barked half-laugh escaped him then. “I’m- what? No.”

It gave her enough courage to turn her head and meet his eyes. “I like the way you look,” she said. “Didn’t have to mean anything. But then- you were kind to me. Gentle. I like it. I’d like more.” Then she swallowed and though everything she’s just said was true, somehow this next one felt more revealing. “I miss being touched.”

He sucked in a shocked breath, eyes locked on hers. “ _Yes_ ,” he breathed, very softly. They watched one another, then. Two people who were so very alone.

For a moment there was silence and then he said, “Can I kiss you?”

She smiled at him, slow, and nodded.

He swallowed, still watching, then set the tube of salve aside. He shuffled closer on his knees, and leaned in. He paused there, eyes moving over her face.

“While we’re both still young,” she told him. Jyn wasn’t sure where this confidence was coming from. She’d had more than her fair share of attention, being one of the few women in the Partisans. But she’d never felt a hunger like this.

He huffed out a laugh, then hesitated. “Nari,” he began slowly, “how old _are_ you?”

“Seventeen,” she told him.

He didn’t seem surprised, but he eyed her.

“It’s the truth.” An acknowledgement of the lies they’ve told so far, and she saw him offer a half-nod at that.

“I’m not untouched, if that’s what you’re worried about,” she told him. Another truth, though a half-one. There had been other young-ish soldiers in the Partisans, and Jyn had been kissed, been touched, touched others, shared an orgasm. But there had never been a time and place for that one last thing. “But the life I lead doesn’t give many opportunities for… this. I don’t want to look back and wish we had.”

Jyn was aware of the realities of the life she’d been forced to live. Odds are one of these days she’d have to trade sex for food, or for safety. People do it every day, and she could hardly judge. But this moment felt like a chance to have something just for _her_.

“I’m protected, too,” she told him, and pulled her sleeve up so that he could see the tiny scar, run his fingers over the implant, the trademarked shape recognisable to any humanoid. Saw had made sure she had birth control as soon as it had been physically possible. The Partisans had no place to raise a baby, and no patience for a fighter that couldn’t fight, either.

“And you’re sure.”

She smiled, reached out a hand to cup his cheek. “I’m sure, Will,” she told him. “I’m sure.”

He leaned in then, all hesitation gone, and fit his mouth to hers. She let out a small noise, tilted her head, and reveled in the softness. He was so warm, smelt so good, and his hand came to rest on her arm, stroking as his lips moved on hers. She hummed into his mouth and felt his lips shape a smile, breaking the kiss.

She rolled onto her side, making room on the bed, and he slid up to kneel beside her, one warm hand coming up to cup her hip and she drew in a deep breath. He kept his eyes on hers, and she was grateful for the dim light of the shuttered room as he brought his free hand up to undo his shirt. She let her eyes drag down as Will’s body was revealed, felt her face flush but stars, he was nice to look at. There were scars, of course, and he was lean – built that way, she thought – but he was warm, and all that smooth strength was hers to touch. She was running her hands down his chest before she even realized she’d moved, and he smiled a little, leaned closer.

“You’ll get benpo all over me,” he murmured.

“I’m sure you’ll survive.”

“Oh I think we’re doing a little better than survival right now,” he returned, and she smiled up into another kiss.

It was easy, _so_ easy. He remembered what she’d said, or perhaps he was just naturally a gentle lover, but his hands gliding over her skin brought only heat and yearning, and she drank kisses from his mouth until they were both gasping. He drew her shirt up over her head and she watched his eyes darken as he took in the sight of her sprawled back on his sheets, flushed and breathing fast.

“What did I do to deserve this,” he murmured, as if to himself.

She didn’t have an answer to that, just arched under him a little, letting their hips brush and enjoying the sharp intake of breath from him. She kept expecting him to reach for her underwear and just get straight to the main event, but he seemed to be in no hurry and she was thanking her lucky stars for that. The women in the Partisans had had some opinions about a man who could wait, and Jyn was now inclined to agree.

He bent to her breasts, stroked and kissed for a while, enjoying himself, she thought. Her nipples weren’t particularly sensitive, but _kriff_ she loved the whole body contact, threading her fingers through his hair and tangling her legs with his, arching and twisting them together until she was just _writhing_.

“Nari,” he mumbled, biting gently, “will you let me-”

“Mmm, yes,” she replied, eyes half closed. Right now she couldn’t imagine objecting to anything he wanted to do.

He slid down her body, drawing her underwear off as he went, and she jolted under him as she felt his face press against the juncture of her legs. She lifted her head, staring down at him.

“Can I?” he asked, eyes intent. The storm outside had been building all the while, she suddenly registered. The steady slamming noise of mud hitting the walls, the ground, the roof was relentless. The room was warm, and dark, and safe, and Will was watching her with hunger in his eyes.

“I. I’ve never-”

He just waited, eyes on hers. One thumb was rubbing back and forth over her hip and she could feel her face reddening under his scrutiny.

“Y-yeah,” she managed.

His eyelids drooped, hooded, and one side of his mouth drew up in a smile. He bent down again, dropping a kiss on the soft skin of her belly, then a gentle bite that made her shiver, even as his hand traced a line down her back, over her ass, thigh, cupping to draw her leg up and against him, opening her to him and she moaned as the air hit her.

She was open to his eyes, his hands, wet and exposed in a way she’d never been before. “If you want me to stop, I will,” he whispered, and even before he’d finished speaking she’d said, “I know.”

For a moment he stilled, eyes locked on her body, and then he bent his head and put his mouth on her.

“Ohhhhh,” Jyn couldn’t hold the sound inside her, and she lifted up off the mattress to stare down at him. _Karking hells_ , he was looking back at her while he did _that_ and it was like every part of her body had turned to liquid fire. Jyn let her head drop back and fisted the sheets, trying to hold perfectly still and needing to move all at the same time. She couldn’t seem to do anything but moan and pant, while his mouth worked on her, sometimes driving her wild with soft, perfect licks, and then suddenly sucking, and she was completely losing her _mind_. How had she not known how good this could be?

 _I’ll stop if you want me to_ , she thought, and managed to gasp, “Don’t stop, please, don’t just don’t oh gods, don’t stop, just, just like, oh, just like that, please, Will-” and then he slid a finger inside her and she clenched down hard, the heat spiking through her and she arched up, up, Will moving with her as she caught aflame, utterly helpless, utterly exposed.

Jyn fell back against the mattress, gasping, legs falling open with utter shamelessness, and she was vaguely aware of Will sliding back up her body, she thought she heard him take a drink from a cantina, but by the time she could force her eyes open again he was looming above her, eyes dark with want, face flushed.

“Get inside me,” she said, then blinked, barely recognising her own voice. But her hands were already moving to his belt, and she could feel him, hard as diamonds against the fabric. Gods, she felt so incredible right now, sensitive and wrung out but just imagining him inside her while she was still tingling-

He moaned when she got her hand on him, brought her hips up to cradle him, pushing his pants further down, then off, with her feet. Never let it be said Jyn Erso couldn’t focus when necessary, she thought, laughing at herself.

“Now, Will,” she said, _“Now.”_

His arms were shaking where he braced above her, and his eyes never left her face. “Nari,” he said, and there was a trace of an accent there, she thought vaguely, “you are…” but he shook his head and trailed off as he slid into her, biting his lip.

“Ohhh,” she said, and let her eyes close. And then, again, softly, “Oh.”

“Can I- tell me when I can move,” he said, voice strained, and there was a definite accent now. She couldn’t be bothered to identify it.

“Now,” she said. “Mmm, now, just-”

He started slow, slow and easy, his face close, lips at her throat and his warm breath flowing over her as he moved. She tilted her hips up, made a small noise as an angle hit something very good, and started moving with him in earnest.

“Yes,” he said, “Nari, _yes_.”

She looked up, then, and their eyes locked. For a while there was nothing but the sound of the storm outside and their own labouring breaths. There was heat rising in her again, or still, perhaps, and he bent to kiss her. She tasted herself on his lips and moaned, feeling a lick of heat at the memory, and the moan seemed to jolt him into a harder, faster thrust and she _liked_ that, oh she _definitely_ liked that.

“Yes,” she whispered, a secret, and raised her hips to meet him. “Will, yes, again.”

He muttered something, a prayer or a curse in a language she didn’t recognise, but his pace quickened and now she was gasping again, making the climb, and he slid a hand between them, his fingers finding the right spot that made her moan, loudly.                   

Will cursed, clearly inspired by the sounds Jyn made, and she dropped any pretence at shyness and let him hear her, every punched out breath, every moan, every sigh of his name.

“I’m close,” he said thickly, “Nari, I’m- I’m close.”

“Yes,” she agreed, “yes, me, I’m, Will-”

She could feel it again, the familiar burn, sweeping through her, and she turned to catch his mouth with hers, her broken off cry meeting his harsh moan and the fragmented words he panted out as he came.

 

 

Afterwards, they lay in each other’s arms, touching lightly, not speaking much. At one point Will raised her hands to his face, kissed her fingertips, then let out a helpless laugh.

“What,” she asked, curious. She doesn’t think he laughs very often.

“I’m going to have a very …unusual association with benpo cream from now on,” he told her, nuzzling her palms where most of the salve has worn  off. “I hope I’m alone the next time I need to use it.”

She snickered a little then, too.

At some point night closed in, the storm still raging outside, and he snuck downstairs to order some food which they ate from one another’s fingers, kissing lazily. She drifted off to sleep with his arm slung across her belly, his nose tucked into the hollow at the nape of her neck. She slept better that night than she had since her mother died.

 

 

 

The storm ended while they slept and Jyn awoke to the sounds of Will, across the room, answering the low call of a comm.

“Yes,” he said, so quietly she knew he didn’t want her to hear.

“We’re ready. We can move today,” the voice at the other end said.

“Understood. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

“See you soon.”

The comm clicked off and she heard him sigh. She knew without opening her eyes that he was looking across the room at her. What did he see, she wondered? Her hair was only just long enough to tangle around her face, and she’d coloured it dark blue about two weeks ago. Once upon a time Jyn might have dreamed a man like this would wake her with a kiss. The pragmatic Jyn of today knew that right now she was both a tangle of naked limbs in his bed, and a complication for whatever deal he was wrangling.

Jyn told herself she was unsurprised when he got to his feet and silently began to gather what remained of his belongings. What was she expecting? For him to wake her and invite her to come with him? Even if he had, she couldn’t have accepted- _wouldn’t_ have accepted. She knew nothing about him, and she was better off on her own, anyway.

There was a moment of stillness and she knew he was done packing. The door of the room opened and he let out a long, slow breath. Jyn kept her eyes closed and her body still, imagining that he was looking back at her, with regret perhaps, or a soft smile. A second later the door closed and he was gone.

 

Three months later she was staring at a med droid and shaking her head. “No,” Jyn said flatly. “Not possible.”

“The results are conclusive,” the droid informed her. “You are pregnant.”

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

 

She wandered out of the health centre in a daze. She can’t be. She _can’t_ be.

Except that, apparently, she _could_. In addition to the charming night-sweats and blisters on the soles of the feet, the Corellian flu apparently interferes with hormone levels so severely that even the implant takes some time to reset. And she had just had the great good luck to spend the night with Will during that reset period.

Jyn sat like a stone in a quiet corner of the spaceport and stared through the plascrete windows as ships landed and took off in a never ending dance.

 _I can’t. I can’t possibly_ , she thought.

_I can’t._

She swallowed. Shuffled back until she could draw her knees up to shield her belly from view and laid a cautious hand on it. Stupid, unhelpful images kept sliding through her mind – her mother’s arms, wrapped tight around her, her father’s laughing face as they rolled down a sand dune together. Family.

_I absolutely can’t._

_I’ll. Tomorrow. I’ll go back to the health centre and end it. And then I’ll go on as before._

She nodded to herself.

It was the only sensible choice.

She tried to ignore the tiny voice in the back of her head, mocking. _And you’re always so sensible, aren’t you Jyn?_

 

 

She got up early and didn’t eat. Walked resolutely down the laneways that would take her to the health centre. Her dreams hadn’t helped, but they hadn’t changed her either. She was utterly alone. She didn’t even have a permanent place to lay her head. There was no other choice to be made.

She went through the doors and swallowed at the smells and sounds of medicine and suffering. Her steps slowed, then stopped, at the low-voiced argument going on to her left.

“Please,” the Nikto was saying. She was holding one arm awkwardly, and the smell coming from the wound was about the worst thing Jyn had smelt since the sulphurated mud of Wecacoe. “ _Please_. I beg. Do not send me back.”

“I really don’t have a choice,” the Bimm behind the desk said. “I’m sorry, but everyone here knows what that tattoo means, and we can’t afford to cross the Hutt. They could destroy this entire centre without even blinking.”

“Then I disappear,” she was pleading. “Pretend you never saw me.”

That note of quiet terror seemed to short-circuit Jyn’s brain entirely. She slid her ever-present blaster out from under her shirt and strode toward the pair.

“There you are,” Jyn said, with her best nasty sneer. “You didn’t get very far, did you? Best you come quietly…” Jyn eyed the shaking Nikto up and down, and then added meaningfully, “[Jiliac](http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Jiliac_Desilijic_Tiron) has had everyone out looking for you.”

The Nikto blinked. The Bimm behind the desk recoiled at the name of one of the Desilijic Hutts, then hastened into speech. “We were just about to-”

Jyn cut a look at her and the words seemed to dry up in her throat.

“Let’s go,” she said, with the utter confidence of someone who expects to be obeyed. She jerked her head toward the door of the health centre. “The longer you make him wait the worse it’ll be, you fool.”

The Nikto – a female – seemed to have finally found something to do other than blink. She ducked her head instead, the movement instinctive and practised, the movement of a life-long slave, Jyn thought with a sick feeling in her belly. “Forgive me,” she said. “I-

“It’s not my forgiveness you’re going to need,” Jyn said, and shoved her in the back with the blaster. “Now _move._ ”

They paced out of the health centre and onto the street, and when the Nikta hesitated, Jyn shoved the blaster into her ribs again and hissed, “Move.”

They stumbled through the streets until Jyn’s shoulders were no longer twitching under the weight of watching eyes. Rounding a corner, Jyn pushed the Nikta one more time, into a dead end alley, and finally holstered her blaster.

“How the hell do you have enough brains to escape a Hutt but not enough to lie low after?” she demanded.

“What?” the Nikta gasped, wide eyed. It shouldn’t be possible for someone with horns and head spikes to look so vulnerable, so afraid.

“I don’t care if your arm is _falling off_ , if you’re on the run from the _Hutts_ , especially if you’re bearing the tattoo of a life-debt slave, then _you don’t ever go to the authorities for help_.”

She swallowed.

“Understand?” Jyn glared at her.

She nodded, body still shaking.

Jyn let out an explosive breath. “What happened to your arm?”

“I… blaster fire,” the Nikta said eventually. “When we were raided.”

“How long ago.”

“Six weeks.”

Jyn raised her brows. She had a vague idea the Nikta were a tough species, but – six weeks with an infected arm? _Damn_ tough.

She sighed and scratched her neck. “Will bacta help?”

The Nikta looked up, eyes wide and nodded emphatically.

“All right,” Jyn said. “Fine. Wait here.”

“You have bacta?”

Jyn rolled her eyes and glanced back. “Do I look like I have bacta? I barely have enough credits to eat.”

“Then how will you-”

“Magic,” Jyn said shortly. “Wait. Here.”

It wasn’t hard to steal supplies in small amounts. It was trying for big hauls that got people caught. She waited around the busiest section of the spaceport until one of the hundred every day disasters occurred – sometimes the result of bad piloting, sometimes an argument or double-cross flaring into a fight or shoot-out, and sometimes something as innocent as a cargo load toppling over. When it did, she slipped into one of the larger, well-stocked ships and pocketed a few items from their emergency supplies.

Considering Saw had trained her to do it by waiting until she was actually injured and then forcing her to steal what she needed, doing it when she had full use of both her hands and her legs was child’s play. She walked back to the alleyway slowly, asking herself the whole time if she’d gone soft in the head. There was no way the slave would still be waiting there – no _way_.

She was still waiting. Jyn actually thought she might not have even moved since Jyn left.

Jyn sighed. “What’s your name,” she demanded, and gestured to the slave’s arm.

“Feren Tu’kosh,” she replied, extending her limb obediently.

Jyn slapped the bacta patch onto the wound without any attempt at gentleness. Feren didn’t even blink. Her lips drew back a little in reaction but she held perfectly still – _well trained,_ Jyn thought, her stomach lurching – and kept her eyes on the wound as it bubbled and seeped beneath the patch.

“Feren,” Jyn said. “You’re going to end up dead if you keep on making stupid decisions.”

The big eyes blink at her. “I didn’t know what else to do.”

“You have to _hide_ ,” Jyn told her. “Surely your master is looking for you?”

Feren hesitated. “I don’t know. Our ship was attacked and many died, but the Hutt are very hard to kill. I didn’t even mean to escape, it was an accident. Everyone was pushing, and screaming, and running, and I ended up in an escape pod.”

“So he might think you’re dead?”

She shrugged and nodded. “The ship blew up. I saw.”

“Lucky,” Jyn observed.

“But I don’t know how to – what to _do_ ,” Feren explained. “My parents surrendered the life debt when I was small. I have been with the Hutt ever since.”

Jyn stared at her. _No_ , she told herself firmly. _No, Jyn, absolutely_ not.

“I can show you some things,” she heard herself say. “Maybe.”

Feren blinked at her again. The green tinge of her skin was losing its blotches. Jyn glanced at her arm, which was no longer actively bubbling.

“You would help me?”

“Just for a little while,” Jyn clarified. She glanced away, “I’ve got my own problems,” she said under her breath, realizing at the last minute that her hand had drifted to touch her belly in what was a dead giveaway of her situation.

Feren’s eyes widened. “You carry young?”

Jyn slid back, stance widening, automatically readying for a fight.

Feren raised her hands slowly. “I am sorry. I should not have said.”

It took a few seconds for Jyn’s breathing to steady. “Doesn’t matter,” she managed. “I won’t be carrying it for much longer.”

Feren bowed her head. “It is a heavy choice you make.”

“Not much of a choice, really,” Jyn said. “I can’t raise a baby on my own, and I don’t have anyone to help. Not very fair to bring a child into the world only to watch it starve to death.”

There was silence for a long moment, and then Feren said, “If you were not alone. If there was another who would protect the child.”

Now it was Jyn’s turn to blink. “What?”

Feren clasped her hands together in a gesture that looked ritualistic. “As you said. I will not survive alone. I do not know how to live outside the protection of the Hutt enclave.” She glanced up at Jyn without lifting her head. “I will be dead very soon without a master.”

“You might figure it out,” Jyn said unconvincingly.

“You require aid. Someone to watch over your young when you cannot.”

“But why the kriff would you volunteer for such a thing?” Jyn said, gaping. “You just _met_ me. I could be a complete monster. I could be the worst person on the Outer Rim.”

“A monster would have sold me back to the Hutt,” Feren said. “A monster would not have procured bacta so that I might heal. I have met monsters.”

“But you’re free, right now,” Jyn said. “Why would you want to tie yourself to anyone?”

“Free and soon to be dead,” Feren said, with a lift of her brows. “My people do not hate slavery as yours do. _Better a living slave than a free Nikta in the grave_.”

“This is completely insane,” Jyn says. “I’m not going to – I went to the health centre to…” she trailed off and flailed helplessly.

“Perhaps there is time to consider it further?” Feren suggested.

Jyn stared at her. “You’re serious. You’d – look, I don’t _want_ a slave. I hate the very _idea_ of slavery.”

Feren bent her head again. “But I would take the oath, and willingly.”

“No,” Jyn said feebly. “I mean-”

“Perhaps you would consider it, while we travel on from this place?”

“I- oh hell,” Jyn said. She was right, they should at least get away from here. “Come on, then.”

Head spinning she led the way. Two mouths to feed. Three, eventually. She touched her stomach again, instinctively. There was no way she could manage it.

But then. Someone on her side. Someone who wouldn’t leave, wouldn’t sell her out to the Imperials, or the Rebellion. Someone to rely on.

A family.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi Everyone
> 
> Thanks for joining me. This was just the introductory part, the main story is the next section which takes us through canon and beyond. Yes, beyond because THEY ALL LIVE, my babies, my precious lambs. THEY LIVE, OKAY?
> 
> Spoiler alert.
> 
> And I know I totally cheated with the whole contraceptive thing, it is a very conveniently Terran explanation.  
> Ssh, just come.


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